Theological Free-Range Parenting

What if we taught our kids to discern God’s voice, not just parrot our theological positions?

This is part of a series on what I call “evangelical safety culture.” To catch up you can read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.

Photo by Giu Vicente on Unsplash (edited)

A few weeks ago I read listened to

Jonathan Haidt

’s instant bestseller The Anxious Generation.¹ There is a wealth of key ideas, compelling research, and practical application points in the book that we can all benefit from, whether or not you parent or work with children. The central thesis of the book is that we under protect children in the virtual world while overprotecting them in the real world. A while back I also listened to Free-Range Kids by

Lenore Skenazy

(who contributes to Haidt’s application chapters in The Anxious Generation and with whom Haidt co-founded the organization Let Grow).

The ideas in these books began to cause some questions to simmer in my mind. What if we’re also overprotecting our children in the world of ideas? Have evangelical parents been overprotecting their kids especially in the world of theological ideas? What would it look like to encourage a posture of curiosity and discovery in our kids when it comes to our faith? What would happen if we went “free-range” in our parenting theologically? Would fewer young adults who grew up evangelical have reason to deconstruct, reason to leave the Church?

Discover Mode vs. Defend Mode

In chapter 3 of The Anxious Generation Haidt discusses two postures with which we can approach the world. The first is the Behavioral Activation System. When a person is operating from this posture they are looking for opportunities in their environment. They are open to new experiences, sociable, and more likely to be positive and relaxed emotionally. Haidt calls this “discover mode.” The second posture is the Behavioral Inhibition System. This approach to one’s environment centers threats rather than opportunities, resulting in chronically stressed individuals who are defensive, anxious and living with a scarcity mindset. Haidt calls this “defend mode.” He says people operating from this system, “tend to see new situations, people, and ideas as potential threats, rather than as opportunities.”

Haidt goes on to argue that the rise of what he calls the “phone-based childhood” has resulted in a generation of children (Gen Z) raised in defend mode, and that to return children to discover mode we must recover a “play-based childhood.” He believes this widespread shift from discover to defend mode was demonstrated on college campuses across America, Canada, and Europe around 2014. “Books, words, speakers, and ideas that caused little or no controversy in 2010 were by 2015 said to be harmful, dangerous, or traumatizing.”

Evangelicals in Defend Mode

I grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s prior to the rise of the “phone-based childhood.” So, I believe there was something else that contributed to my own experience of defend mode: evangelicalism. The culture wars were in full swing and evangelicals were anxiously defending their place and power in America, politically, socially, and theologically.

The loud indignation of Rush Limbaugh and other talk radio hosts was the background noise of my childhood. I spent hours a week across two years of high school researching for and preparing six minute speeches for each of 100 questions on Christian apologetics, including topics like What evidence is there for the existence of God in our physical universe? and Does science contradict the Bible? I would use the thousands of index cards I filled with notes to parrot my conservative evangelical faith community’s views to judges who believed exactly the same things. I don’t recall ever having the opportunity to actually have a conversation with a non-Christian about any of those topics, though my fellow homeschool students and I spent hours debating the merits of Calvinism vs. Arminianism between competitive rounds of speech and debate. Sadly, I know very few of those fellow competitors who are still walking with Jesus today.

Going Theologically Free-Range

Today, the culture wars still rage, and many evangelicals continue to live out their faith in defend mode. If we continue to make parenting and educational decisions for our Gen Z and Gen Alpha children from a posture of fear, suspicion, and defensiveness we will perpetuate a life of anxiety lived on the defense, an anxiety from which our children may feel they can only heal by distancing themselves from Christianity altogether.

But I am hopeful that we can recover joy and peace by returning to discover mode. I am prayerfully exploring with my husband how we can encourage a posture of curiosity, excitement, and openness to new and different theological ideas in our own children. They are only 1 and 3, so of course this will shift over time, but here’s what going theologically free-range looks like for us.

• We understand the difference between first, second, and third tier issues of Christian orthodoxy and want to make a point to pass this knowledge onto our kids as we disciple them.² We want to make sure they understand where the line is between what we believe is unwavering truth and what is our personal opinion/conviction or the opinion/conviction of our chosen denomination/faith community.

• We encourage questions and theological discussions. As they get older we will also encourage healthy theological debate and welcome their inevitable differences in theological opinion.

• We don’t plan to “train” them in apologetics, which assumes an explicit posture of defensiveness. Instead, we want to model engagement with our faith that is rooted in confident joy and trust in Jesus.

• As their theological understanding grows and their theological opinions shift in their teen years we will not refer to these as “phases” they will outgrow. If we believe that our preteen or teen children have been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, then we will trust the Spirit’s voice in their lives. We will recognize that it is possible that God is leading them somewhere God has not led us and rejoice in the fact that we can learn from them as fellow siblings in Christ as much as they can learn from us.

• In all this, we will pray earnestly for humility. We know we cannot do any of this in our own strength, but only by God’s grace.

Now, I want to hear from you. Does the concept of defend mode vs. discover mode resonate with you? What about theological free-range parenting? If you’re a parent, is this a posture you already try to take with your kids? If you grew up evangelical, is this a posture that you would have found helpful from your own parents and faith community? Hit reply to this email or head to the comments to share your thoughts.

Beauty on Substack

Courtney Ellis

shared a beautiful essay in

Ecstatic

about hope in the face of despair and the power of small acts of care when we realize we can’t possibly change the world. “All hope is local. Most change is small,” she says.

You Can't Change the World

Beauty in Family
We have safely arrived in Germany and recovered from jet lag. The kids are adjusting beautifully to our schedule here. Each morning Oma and Opa (my in-laws) pick them up for a morning of adventure, which might include a walk in the forest, a visit to a playground, a tour of all the construction sites in town, or a visit to watch the trains go by. Needless to say, they are in toddler heaven and we are beyond blessed that they get to spend so much quality time together.

Swinging with the grandparents. The view from where we're staying.

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2. If you’re not clear on these distinctions, stay tuned. We have a guest post by Phylicia Masonheimer coming in a few weeks that will cover this.